the clock is ticking in the united states, however, on the fiscal cliff, which you are very concerned about. the xpiration of the bush tax cuts and automatic spending cuts that come if there's no budget agreement. how do you view this playing out? what are the implications for the market? >> i think this is very important. last week maybe the point when investor sentence focuses on this instead of europe. first of all, the size of the fiscal cliff at about 650 billion, 4% of gdp. it would be hitting at a time when the economy is weak and particularly the consumer is weak. i do think this represents a big danger to the economy. the challenge is it's not discounted into the price. we're all talking about it, i've met very few investors who believe it will happen. if we do start to move to an environment where it becomes more likely, it will create volatility and also hit equity prices as well towards the end of the year. >> how do you invest against that kind of back drop? where would you put money to work right now? >> i think there are a couple of things investors can do. one thought